The clubs wanted blood

KEITH HARRIS today revealed how pressure from his other business interests forced him to walk away from his role as chairman of the Football League.

Today the League is without a clear leader as its 72 member clubs work out what to do next in the wake of the collapse of ITV Digital. It is being run by the four man team of financial director Tad Detko, head of communications John Nagle, commercial director Richard Masters and director of operations Andy Williamson.

Chief executive David Burns resigned on Tuesday after the High Court ruled on Friday that Carlton and Granada, parent companies of ITV Digital, were not responsible for the £131m they were claiming from the failed £315m TV rights deal.

Surprisingly, Harris followed him out of the door after turning down a request to take on a more full time role in the reorganisation of the League.

The former chief executive of HSBC's investment banking arm decided his other roles, which include chairmanship of City broking firm Seymour Pierce, needed more of his time.

Last night, sipping wine in the bar of the Carlton Tower Hotel in Knightsbridge, Harris could not disguise his disappointment that he was unable to walk away with the future of the League assured. But he looked relieved, finally free to pursue his other business interests away from the incessant sniping of a handful of club chairmen.

London's First Division clubs have led the attacks on the former Football League management. Although Burns was the focus of their stinging criticism (Millwall chairman Theo Paphitis said he couldn't run a kebab shop), Harris was not spared. The £100m four year deal he arranged with Sky was attacked by Crystal Palace's Simon Jordan among others for selling the big clubs short over too long a period.

Harris responded: 'Theo's personal attack on David last week got close to crossing the bounds of decency. I know he felt very strongly about it but there were different ways of achieving what he wanted, but I have ultimately got respect for him. As far as Simon Jordan is concerned, frankly, I find it extremely hard to find any respect for him.

'There's no way anyone should have criticised the contract with Sky and Theo now realises that.'

Harris said: 'I actually didn't feel the stomach to fight it any more. I had a very frank exchange with Theo on Monday after which he said that if I was prepared to restructure the Football League along the lines they were suggesting then the First Division would back me to stay.

'But my gut feeling, told me that the board of directors of the League were more interested in making sure the status quo prevailed. At the same time I got a real shock when the share price of Seymour Pierce fell because of a report that I would be devoting more time to football.

'That was in the back of my mind when I confronted the board yesterday morning. It was a real eye opener and I realised that the trouble with football is it sucks you in. Your emotions, your time. It suddenly becomes all-consuming.

'Over the past two years my colleagues from other walks have been very understanding. But one or two at Seymour Pierce, both directors and staff, told me it was high time I devoted more time to them.

'And if the guys at the Football League are more keen on preserving the status quo and turning David and me into a scapegoat without taking the responsibility, it was the appropriate time to say, that's enough.'

Burns and Harris have been blamed for the ITV Digital fiasco even though the deal was done by executives who have long since moved on. Despite that Harris says he regrets not nailing the contract down as soon as he realised it was on shaky ground. He said: 'When I joined as chairman I asked to see the relevant contracts and the short form contract of the ITV Digital deal was three pages long. It had more initialled manuscript changes on it than anything I had ever seen.

'That set alarm bells ringing and when David Burns was appointed, one of the early conversations I had was how important that was to turn that into a long form contract including everything that went before it (such as parental company guarantees) in the bid document. It was a serious objective but for some reason, David being new or perhaps Brian Philpotts, former commercial director, leaving for the Premier League, it fell between stalls.'

But knowing the legal backing for their deal with ITV Digital, and more importantly Carlton and Granada, was so flimsy why pursue such an aggressive legal case?

'Boy, have I asked myself that question lots of times,' Harris said. 'I am more self-critical than anyone else could heap criticism on me. We took a stance which invoked the threat of legal action while trying to negotiate some type of settlement. But in doing the first we didn't have a chance of achieving the latter. I know that now and if I am wrong then mea culpa, but at the time I didn't see what else we could have done.

'The clubs wanted blood. During that time the board and the commercial committee, not withstanding the fact it changed several times during this period, was kept in touch. We had several meetings with the clubs.

'One of the accusations has been that they were ill-informed but during that time they were given as much information as we had from our lawyers. And the strength of the case was never overstated. It was only very late on that it became apparent our case was as shaky as it was. A lesson I have learned is that civil litigation is a lottery.'

Despite the experience of the last few months Harris doesn't rule out a return to football. In the meantime he has been paid off the remaining one year of his contract, thought to be worth around £50,000.

He said: 'I saw this job as the chance, with all the money the Football League had washing around, to create something for the national good. It's a big disappointment that has not happened.'

The challenge now for English football, Harris says, is to solve the financial conundrum of what happens to those big spending clubs relegated from the Premiership.

He explained: 'The real issue the Premiership has to face is how do we protect relegated clubs because they become the most vulnerable. If you close the shop you destroy the whole nature of the game.

'The problem is everyone acts in their own self interest and that is what must change.'